Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Eleanor's Library

My dears, thank you all for the kind wishes you left while I was under the weather. I'm still somewhat cloudy, but as my father the pilot might say, visibility is improving.

No knitting today, if you don't mind. Knitting soon. Books today.

You may recall that a little while ago I wrote about buying books for a colleague's daughter, newly turned thirteen. In that post, I delineated at length my opinion of most novels being published for the not-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman market. In brief, they want to make me gouge out my own eyes with a grapefruit spoon.

I don't wish to retract a word of what I wrote, although one or two commenters did make me wonder whether I ought to have been nicer about Meg Cabot. Thanks to your dizzying 194 comments, I did think deeply about the books we read when young, and how dear they can become to us.

I turned from my desk and faced the five-foot Victorian case where I keep humor and children's books, with Eleanor's Library on the topmost shelf.

To tell you about Eleanor's Library you'll have to step back with me to the early nineties, when I was a recent graduate working for starvation wages at New England Conservatory in Boston.

One good thing about starvation wages: they really teach you to focus your spending. I was quite the thrifty housekeeper in those days, making one chicken and two dollars' worth of vegetables bought from the stalls at Haymarket last for a full week. I didn't eat in restaurants, I didn't go to movies or theater, and I didn't buy clothes that weren't marked "final clearance."

Looking back, I wouldn't have minded so much, really, except for one thing: the budget left me little or no money for books.

When I really couldn't stand it any more, I'd let myself shop a little at the Brattle Bookshop near Downtown Crossing. In the vacant lot next to its tall, old building, the shop would wheel out a fleet of library carts piled with hundreds of books in absolutely no order whatever. They were unguarded and totally unprotected from the elements. These were the rejects, acquired en masse in estate sales and deemed unsellable at retail prices.

And every book cost a dollar.

However, on the money I was making even that was too pricey for more than carefully planned visits. I was pretty careful to stay off Winter Street if I hadn't made sure of my finances in advance.

One day, however, I slipped. I was in the neighborhood to buy dress shoes. My only pair had crumbled to dust. I had to either replace them or go to the office barefoot in February. I got the shoes, but was left with eight dollars: enough to just pay for food until my next check arrived three days later.

It was an awful feeling, and I walked toward the subway in a gray stupor, head down. Passing Winter Street, something in me snapped. I felt sick, and I needed a book to make me feel better. One book. One damned book, or I might well go insane. Surely, I could spare the dollar. Far cheaper than a month in a mental hospital.

I'd been among the carts for about ten minutes when I spotted a decorated spine with the title Hester Stanley's Friends. I picked it up; the cover design was classic Edwardian:

I was surprised to see it outside; normally the Brattle (and most shops) charge a premium for this sort of artwork. Looking inside, I found this inscription on the flyleaf:

I was torn. On the one hand, this was a splendid binding. On the other, it wasn't something I was likely to read. An interesting curiosity, yes. But my circumstances did not permit spending on interesting curiosities. I decided to put it back.

Then I noticed the book next to it. Another decorated spine: Kitty Landon's Girlhood.

Inside, an inscription:

I looked at the shelf again. More decorated spines. Inside each, the same name the same bold script. Somehow, in the midst of all this chaos, these six of Eleanor's books had landed together in a neat row.

My heart started beating. For a bibliophile, this was a moral quandary. I felt like I'd stumbled over a basket of abandoned, infant sextuplets and been asked, "Which one do you want to save from certain death?"

I pulled them all off the cart and held them, debating. I wondered who Eleanor was. I imagined what these books might have meant to her, since they'd been kept together all this time. I wondered if she'd sold them herself, or whether they simply arrived in a mass shipment after her estate had been broken apart.

I looked at the inscriptions again. Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor. From Mother. From Uncle Bill. A Happy Birthday. A Very Merry Christmas 1911.

And then it started to rain.

I was hungry for a couple of days, but a sense of Having Done the Right Thing can be very sustaining.

This has been a long post, longer than I intended. More about the books themselves will follow, if you're interested. Plus knitting, I promise. Believe it or not, the christening shawl has grown.

a lovely story. i would have done the same thing. i have an old knitting instruction book that i bought from our large second hand bookstore and didn't notice till i got home that it's from a house up the block from me

Welcome back online, and here's to your good health. Love your writing, Franklin. I feel as if I'd been to the Saturday matinee to see the latest Flash Gordon serial...I'm on the edge of my seat, chastened that I have to tune in again, to find out MORE!

I'm not surprised that you decided saving the books was more important than food...

I have some of my grandfather's books with similar inscriptions. He was a poet and walked all over Vermont selling his self-published books from a little cart. And then spending the grocery money on more books for the "feeding the minds" of his 8 children. (They all excelled academically, of course)

I can't wait to hear more about Eleanor! Do you know more about her??(((hugs)))

I am just the same, cannot pass up an obviously well-loved book (or old, odd book, or almost any book, for that matter). I once found a copy of a children's book called Beyond the Snow, by P. Fishe Reed, published in 1873. Cost me all of fifty cents. Inside are the following inscriptions:

Franklin, you're making me "homesick" for Boston, which I just left to come back home to the Chicago area. Thanks as always for your thought-provoking words. Hope you're feeling better and that we get to see progress on the shawl soon.

Yes, please more on the books...I've occasionally had that feeling of being connected to another place and time when finding an inscription in a book. They do carry some sort of identity, some spirit, across the years...so yes, more please. You've got me going to my shelves to revisit some old friends.

Somehow, somewhere, I got an idea in my head as a child, that people were in heaven only as long as they were remembered. Then they were reincarnated. It's stuck with me. Eleanor gets to play in the clouds for a little while longer.

ACK, this is like an unresolved chord! I'll be eagerly awaiting the continuation of the tale. Did you ever find out anything about Eleanor? Are the books first editions? Are the stories they contain as rich as the bindings? You actually could write a young person's book based on this real-life adventure!

So evocative of Boston in winter; dreary and grey. I'm glad I don't live around there anymore. Do let us know more about the books and Eleanor. Can't wait to see the shawl, and glad you are starting to feel better.

Welcome back, Franklin! Glad you are feeling a little better. Yes, I would love to hear more about Eleanor's books. I am delighted to hear you are search of something suitable for your colleague's daughter (would like to hear about those treasures as well), and interested to hear more about Eleanor's library.

EDMANDS, John Wiley, a Representative from Massachusetts; born in Boston, Mass., March 1, 1809; completed preparatory studies, and was graduated from the English High School at Boston; interested in woolen mills in Dedham, Mass., and the Pacific Mills Co. in Lawrence, Mass.; elected as a Whig to the Thirty-third Congress (March 4, 1853-March 3, 1855); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1854; treasurer of the Pacific Mills at Lawrence in 1855; presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1868; died in Newton, Mass., on January 31, 1877; interment in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass.

What a lovely story. I often wonder where the used books I stumble upon have been - who loved them - how they came to be discarded. It's a sad fact of life that when one passes, the possessions loved so much are considered just so much crap to the beneficiaries. One more thing crazy Aunt Beatrice clung to.

I buy them all. All I can afford.

But the most painful things to find at yard sales and estate sales (worse even, I think, than old family pictures): grandma's recipe file box. I buy them and cry over them each and every time.

Please proceed with the story. I too would have gone without the food in favor of the books. I love to rumble around the local antique shops and garage sales looking for knitting books and gardening books. I am always drawn to the inscribed ones, and to this day, I do not give some one a book as a gift without an inscription placed inside.

I buy up very old autograph books -- there's something so sad about them. Young girls with their books so full of the future now turning to dust. I can't bear to see them--the young women and their books--sitting on a shelf unappreciated.

Do tell us more about the books. I have scads of books. I've purchased a lot of them at a big annual charity book sale we have in St. Louis. I wasn't able to go this year because I lacked funds. Nearly broke my heart but I knew there was no point in going when I couldn't buy anything. Last year I spent $40 there.

So glad you're feeling better! And what else could you have done about Eleanor's books?

I've have gone insane long ago without books. Whenever money's been close to nothing, I've frequently needed a book more than food. I know it's a trite quote after being so overused, but hyacinths for the soul...

I cannot claim the bibliophile title, however, I too harbor very deep affection for the books we read (or were read to us "Mr. Grabbit the Rabbit" comes immediately to mind) as children.

Favorite gifts of my husband's are the vintage Chip Hilton sports books. Any time I am in a quandry about a gift I search for a Chip Hilton book, in good condition, from the 40's. Alas, in the last few years they have become very dear.

I'm glad to hear you are feeling better! I would have done the same - those poor orphan books sitting in the rain, not to be thought of! Hunger was a cheap price to pay for the rescue of Eleanor's Library.

Hi Franklin - I would love to hear more about the book Hester Stanley's Friends . . . because my name is Hester S. Actually a different last name, but this is the first time I have ever seen a book about another Hester S!

Tears in my eyes. Bless you, Franklin. I have rescued books from rainy yard sales, but my triumph was buying a book I had sought for 30 years from eBay, and it was the exact volume, with my great-great- grandmother's notes still pinned to the last page! (Blasted relatives didn't even ask if we wanted anything.)

Let me just chime in - yes, 100% totally and completely interested in hearing more. If there is one thing I love doing more than knitting, it's collecting and reading books. The smell of the graduate library stacks at UW is in my top ten of favorites.

I really liked this post, Franklin. I love that there is a connection to the past through these books — what ever it was. I used to buy old Time Magazines with Barbra on the cover at that Shop! It was great, I can almost smell that old-book-smell.

I loved your story. My husband and I are going through the arduous task of moving, and as we clean out the clutter and try to pare down, apart from my knitting stash, it is the bookshelves that give him the most pause. Every very time he asks, "Do you really need that one?" I have to say, "Yes. Yes I really do." Books are such rewarding treasures, and hard to let go or pass by. Enjoy your collection! :)

You so have a way with words...my heart was in my throat thinking, ohhh I hope he saved them, I hope he saved them, I hope he saved them...in a few short sentences you managed to make me fall in love with Eleanor's books. Lovely story and I know what it is like to seriously sacrifice food for the love of something (books, yarn, plants) non-essential to life, but absolutely essential to one's soul.

Please, do continue this lovely story, Franklin. You brighten my day, no matter the topic. I came for the knitting and stay for the delightful wit and wisdom. Take good care of yourself. You have been missed.

I have never been to Brattle Books even though I work down the road from there.

I used to work in a cruddy dental office, and across the street was an old used bookstore. I would go in once a week or so to explore the dark corners of the store and escape the ringing phones. Being surrounded by books was a soothing anodyne to a hectic world. Hm. I need to go book shopping again.

You were the perfect savior for those books. Please keep the story line going for us. I walked past that shop by mistake (got on the wrong street for the errand I was on) the other day, but it was crappy Boston weather and I kept going. Guess where I'll be spending a few summer lunch hours!Glad you're on the mend - have missed you.

I can't pass up a good book sale either. In 1984 I picked up a copy of "Knitting Without Tears" by Elizabeth Zimmerman for the price of $1.00. The rest, as they say, is history. I consider it the best single dollar I've ever spent. Glad you are feeling better.

As one who has bought a book with a pretty cover just for the pretty cover.. And as one who has bought a book with a pretty cover b'c it contained the name of a relative on that cover.. I look forward to hearing more of this tale.

This clinches it.You are, in fact, ME, in a swarthy-Mediterranean-gay-man's (lovely) body.

The Stephen Fry clock is ... well, ... brilliant.

And if the pre-recorded phrase about "the Earth's pleasure" ... "only requir[ing] your presence" doesn't have the same impact as "do me again," well,...

The world's still a slightly imperfect place (viz: Threadingwater's amazing, but sadly necessary project).I am whipping out the credit card as we speak.(No, for the clock, you nasty man!)Thanks for another *fabulous* post, yet another in a long string which I felt compelled to read aloud to my fabulous Spousal Equivalent (who, sadly, does not have a brother, but a lesbian sister, who will not suit.).Doctus decorusque es et te amamus, Franklin!Good luck ending the indentured servitude.The knitting world would only prosper.

Thank you for saving the books! Eleanor is my daughters great grandmother!! We were with her on her 100th birthday and she died soon thereafter. If you are interested in selling the books to us please let me know as I know my daughter would love to have them!! I found this post because my daughter is applying to her GGrandmonther Alma matter (Wellesely College)and we did a google search. Eleanor loved books, she was a women ahead of her times! Thank you again

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